MARKED

SJI Holliday has been reading crime fiction since she was able to hold a book. She writes short stories and her debut novel, Black Wood was published in spring 2015. You can find out more at www.sjiholliday.com.

In New York's East Village a young girl is brutally raped, tortured and murdered. Detective Callum Doyle has seen the victim's remains. He has visited the distraught family. Now he wants justice. Doyle is convinced he knows who the killer is. The problem is he can't prove it …and soon Doyle finds himself at risk of losing everything he holds dear. Including his life.

Marked sees the third outing for David Jackson’s complex and charismatic detective, Callum Doyle of the NYPD. The story starts with a darkly comic scene involving some stray body parts and a Chinese restaurant, but soon turns into something far more sinister as we find out that the remains are of a young girl who has gone missing in the city. It doesn’t take long for Doyle to link the girl’s tattoo with a similar nasty crime and he is sure he knows who has committed it; but the problem is he has no proof.

But Doyle never lets something like evidence hold him back, and next thing you know, he’s managed to alienate himself from his new partner, his boss, the rest of the squad and finally, his wife. Then he’s summoned to meet with an old adversary, who isn’t too happy with him either. Oh, and then Paulson, his Internal Affairs nemesis, shows up…

Like the previous two books featuring this character, Pariah and The Helper, I was gripped from the first scene. The pacing and tone are just right, and there are plenty of twists and turns to keep you guessing till the end. As we’ve come to expect, Doyle’s wife and daughter carry on quietly in the background, but what seems to be an unrelated thread about their relationship is really a parallel of his relationship with his job, adding an extra layer to Doyle that helps make him who he is.

I’m a big fan of Doyle. He’s one of the most believable fictional detectives I’ve read; and I’m looking forward to finding out where he goes next. In this book, almost right from the beginning, I wondered just how far it was that he was prepared to go.